Any Way The Wind Blows
by H. S. Hines
Summary: Miroku knows he is going to die someday. This is a short fic about his musings up until the end. Drabble, oneshot, complete.
1. Any Way The Wind Blows

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or make any money and the title came from the song that inspired this drabble, Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen. I heard the line Miroku half-quotes and got all sad as I realized how much the song fit him… How awful it is to know that you're going to die…_

Genre: Drabble, Angst, songfic  
Word count: 465  
Rating: K+  
Code: Mir/San  
Feedback: Please let me know what you thought!

**Any Way The Wind Blows**

Some days he wished that he hadn't asked her to wait until Naraku was destroyed. Once or twice, he almost asked her to just marry him on the spot. Cold nights and dark thoughts pressed in on him, seeming to grow with each passing moon. The moon… he had come to resent InuYasha's reaction to it. It wasn't the hanyo's fault by any means, but each time his hair and eyes darkened, Miroku was reminded that another month had passed. Another month of failure and one less month left to live.

These were thoughts he shared with no one. Some nights, he wanted to scream out to the heavens, 'Slow down! I'm going as fast as I can!' but time kept passing, pushing him forward, leaving him unfulfilled. The curse in his hand consumed lives and grew, but even if he were to never open it again, it would still expand. It would still threaten his life on a daily basis. He was a walking disaster waiting to happen and he sometimes considered sneaking away from his friends to ensure their safety.

But Miroku was selfish. He always had been. Women, sake, comfort—he convinced himself that it was nothing to break his vows for these things because he wouldn't live long enough to find enlightenment anyway. They were his karmic payback while he still lived, for the fate that awaited him. However—he wasn't the dishonest coward he had been before he met the miko and the hanyo. The taijiya had rid him of the warm beds he had shared, but he didn't resent it. He no longer spent his days going wherever the wind blew him.

They had made him a better man. They were the family he never had and he couldn't leave them, even to save their life. Not until the end, anyway.

"Sango," Miroku said, walking up beside her when they were alone one day. "I must go." He looked off into the distance and she frowned, reaching out to touch his arm.

"Go? Where? Why?" The concern in her voice moved him and he embraced her. For the last time.

"If I'm not back again this time tomorrow… go on with your life, and be happy." He kissed her then, one last moment of peace in this world for him. Before she could say another thing, he had run away, his farewells having been made to everyone else a few minutes before. He knew that being cryptic was the only way they would allow him to leave. It would take them all time to realize what was happening. Just enough time, for him to get safely away from them. He looked back down at them from the top of a hill, one last time, before leaving them all… forever.


	2. Just A Poor Boy

_Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or make any money and the title came from the song that inspired this drabble, Bohemian Rhapsody, by Queen. I heard the line Miroku half-quoted in "Any Way The Wind Blows" and got all sad as I realized how much the song fit him…_

Genre: Drabble, Angst, songfic  
Word count: 496  
Rating: K+  
Code: none  
Feedback: Please let me know what you thought!

_Note: Sequel to Any Way The Wind Blows._

**Just a Poor Boy**

Two months later, InuYasha's group came across a decimated village in which survived one old priestess and a toddler. The woman explained that the little child had, one day, had a void open in his hand and sucked everyone in before she could put a ward on it. He was too young to understand what had happened, but he still cried every night for his mother.

"That lecher…" Sango hissed, pushing away the tears that started to rise. She tried to replace the despair in her heart with anger towards her lost love, but it still wasn't enough to prevent the single tear that slid down her cheek. She had forgiven him all the women, all the lying, cheating and stealing on the day they marked the crater that served as his grave. She couldn't do as he asked—she hadn't been happy for a minute since the day he left and her dreams were haunted with the regrets that she didn't voice in the day.

The little boy walked up to her and held his tiny hand out, reaching for her. Surprised, she leaned down and picked him up and he wiped away the tear she had shed.

"Lady sad, too?" he asked her. "Lady know mommy?"

"No," Sango answered him. "I knew your father." The elderly priestess looked up, surprised. "He had a hole in his hand, too."

"You have seen this curse before?" the miko asked. Sango nodded.

"It is passed down through this family, created by a demon named Naraku fifty years ago."

"Is papa gone, too?" the child asked.

"Yes," Sango answered. The little boy looked down in sadness.

"Everyone goes away," he whispered.

"What's your name?" Sango asked him.

"Miroku," he answered. Sango's breath caught. As if the kazaana wasn't enough proof—the boy was named for his father.

"What will you do with him?" Sango asked quietly. She ignored the stares of her friends as she held the little boy close.

"I do not know. His mother had no family..."

"May I have him?" Sango asked, thinking, 'He should have been mine, anyway.' A look of relief passed over the old woman's face.

"I am very happy," she said softly, "That someone wants him who knows his family. Of course you may have him."

"Is that all right with you, Miroku?" Sango asked the baby. "Will you come with me?" The little boy's big, soulful blue eyes stared up at her.

"Will you go away, too?"

"No," Sango said.

"What are you going to do with him?" InuYasha snapped. "We can't carry a kid around with us."

"Which is why, this is where we part," Sango said, turning to her friends with her new child. "I will go live with Mushin to learn to raise him. It's fate, us having found him, and I won't pass this up. It's all he left me…" With that, Sango left with Kirara and her son, hoping to see them again, some day.

_**The End**_


End file.
